Jacket illustration: Jacob Lawrence, The Apartment ( 1943) (courtesy of the Hunter
Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, purchase from the Benwood Foundation and
the 1982 Collectors' Group Funds).

CHELSEA HOUSE PUBLISHERS

Editorial Director Richard Rennert
Executive Managing Editor Karyn Gullen Browne
Copy Chief Robin James
Picture Editor Adrian G. Allen
Creative Director Robert Mitchell
Art Director Joan Ferrigno
Production Manager Sallye Scott

Writers of English: Lives and Works

Senior Editor S. T. Joshi
Series Design Rae Grant

Staff for CONTEMPORARY BLACK AMERICAN POETS AND DRAMATISTS

Assistant Editor Mary Sisson
Research Robert Green
Picture Researcher Villette Harris

© 1995 by Chelsea House Publishers, a division of Main Line Book Co.

Introduction © 1995 by Harold Bloom

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

First Printing

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Contemporary Black American poets and dramatists / edited and with an introduction by
Harold Bloom.
p. cm.—(Writers of English)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7910-2213-7.—ISBN 0-7910-2238-2 (pbk.)
1. American literature—Afro-American authors—History and criticism. 2. American
literature—Afro-American authors—Bio-bibliography. 3. American literature— 20th
century—History and criticism. 4. American literature— 20th century—Bio-bibliography.
5. Afro-Americans in literature. I. Bloom, Harold. II. Series.
PS153.N5C64 1994

810.9'896073—dc20

94-5885

[B]

CIP